Secretly Held Al-Qaida Suspect Transferred By CIA to Gitmo
A high-level al-Qaida operative who allegedly helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan has been secretly held and interrogated since last summer at an undisclosed location, the Pentagon revealed today.
The CIA turned over suspect Mohammad Rahim this week to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reports the Associated Press. This was, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, what AP describes as “the first such transfer from his agency’s interrogation program since April 2007.”
He is an Afghan national, Reuters wrote, and he is accused of having helped bin Laden hide out and subsequently escape after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. led to an American invasion of Afghanistan. A Pentagon spokesman says Rahim also “tried to procure chemicals for a plan to attack U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and to recruit people with access to U.S. military facilities,” as Reuters puts it.
“Although U.S. officials refused to say where Rahim was captured, an Aug. 2 story in Pakistan’s The Nation said he was one of two al-Qaida and Taliban aides picked up by authorities,” AP writes. The news agency said Rahim was arrested in Lahore a few days before the National article was published, according to a memo from Hayden to CIA employees obtained by AP (and apparently by other news organizations as well). The memo also contended that Rahim gave “aid to al-Qaida, the Taliban and other anti-coalition militants.”
News of Rahim’s turnover appears likely to spark renewed controversy over the CIA’s secret detention program for high-level terrorism suspects. As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, critics contend that it is unconstitutional and, to the extent that unduly harsh interrogation methods or torture are used, ineffective.
Rahim is the second such detainee transferred by the CIA since September 2006, when President George Bush confirmed that the CIA has a secret overseas detention and interrogation program, reports Agence France-Presse.
“A senior counterterrorism official would not describe the interrogation methods used on Rahim,” writes Reuters. However, the official said, “this detention was done in accord with U.S. law.”
